Nonlinear Attitude Estimation Using Intermittent and Multirate Vector Measurements

This article considers the problem of nonlinear attitude estimation for a rigid body system using intermittent and multirate inertial vector measurements as well as continuous (high-rate) angular velocity measurements. Two types of hybrid attitude observers on Lie group
$SO(3)$
are proposed. First, we propose a hybrid attitude observer where almost global asymptotic stability is guaranteed using the notion of almost global input-to-state stability on manifolds. Thereafter, this hybrid attitude observer is extended by introducing a switching mechanism to achieve global asymptotic stability. Both simulation and experimental results are presented to illustrate the performance of the proposed hybrid observers.